The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.0

The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion Blu-ray Movie Review

Woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 14, 2019

According to several online sites like the IMDb, Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion had its theatrical exhibition debut in February of 1970 in its native country of Italy, before becoming one of that year’s global cinematic phenomena. That would seem to bolster the idea, actually questioned in passing by commentator Kat Ellinger in a supplement included on this Blu-ray, that The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion owes its title if not much of anything else to the lionized Elio Petri outing. While Ellinger does draw a few parallels between the two films, including a kind of sadomasochistic sexual energy that informs both of them, as Ellinger also mentions, anyone thinking that The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion is a “direct descendant” of the earlier film will probably have their expectations dashed pretty significantly. The film kind of strangely hints at kinkiness without ever totally “going there”, making it a kind of odd entry in the giallo genre. This was the first collaboration between director Luciano Ercoli and screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi, and if their later pieces like Death Walks on High Heels and Death Walks at Midnight (available in the Arrow set Death Walks Twice: Two Films by Luciano Ercoli) are better remembered, The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion has some distinctive pleasures of its own, even if the film may strike some as overly labored and kind of a slow slog at times.

Minou (Dagmar Lassander) is a pampered but unhappy wife, married to Peter (Pier Paolini Capponi), whose frequent absence means Minou has to find her own amusements. She’s out on a seawall one evening when she’s accosted by a mysterious stranger known (later) only as The Blackmailer (Simon Andreu), who first circles her on his motorcycle, and then chases her by foot onto the beach. An unabashedly sexually charged scene ensues where the Blackmailer unsheathes a knife that’s part of a cane like device, and then forces Minou onto her back, where he cuts through the laces holding her dress together. Weirdly, the Blackmailer doesn’t press his advances and instead tells an already shocked Minou that Peter is a murderer.

When subsequent events transpire that actually begin to convince Minou that Peter may not exactly be a knight in shining armor, the Blackmailer ends up manipulating her into a series of further compromises, but, again, the film is almost curiously circumspect in terms of how overt it is in depicting Minou’s moral (and, frankly, physical) degradation. Instead, the film tries to toe more of a psychological thriller line, though some may feel that Minou is not an especially sympathetic character herself, even when she finds herself surrounded by a veritable host of duplicitous people, including her supposed BFF Dominique (Susan Scott).

Ellinger’s commentary gets into the whole “f giallo” idiom (meaning it features a female focal character), as well as some of the film’s more hyperbolic aspects, but what may be one of the best summaries of the emotional tenor of The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion is the use of “melodrama” on the back cover of this release. This film has an amost Sirkian ambience at times, with evocative widescreen framings contrasting with roiling emotions and any number of dysfunctional relationships.

One of the kind of curious presentational aspects to this film is the more than passing resemblance between Lassander and Scott (whom gialli fans will know is Nieves Navarro). The resemblance is so striking that I actually thought it was going to be a plot point, something that never really materialized. The film kind of remarkably manages to hint at considerable sleaziness while also being peculiarly chaste. It’s quite stylish, something that’s especially impressive given that this was Ercoli’s debut as a director, but it’s never really overly suspenseful and Gastaldi’s screenplay may not make the most of several inherent ambiguities regarding character and motivations.

The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. Arrow's insert booklet contains the following verbiage about the restoration:

The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion / Le foto proibite di una signora per bene is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 with Italian and English mono audio. Scanning and restoration work was completed at L'Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna. The original 2-perf Techniscope 35mm camera negative was scanned in 2K resolution on a pin-registered Arriscan. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, picture instability and other instances of film wear were repaired or removed through a combination of digital restoration tools and techniques. The mono Italian and English language tracks were remastered from the optical sound negatives. The audio synch will appear slightly loose against the picture, due to the fact that the dialogue was recorded entirely in post-production, as per the production standards of the period.

The film was graded on Digital Vision's Nucoda Film Master at R3Store Studios, London.

As the commentary track on another release I reviewed recently, The Appaloosa, got into, Techniscope was a cheaper, non-anamorphic widescreen process which per that commentary can look a bit grainy at times, and with that understanding, this is a really excellent looking transfer almost all of the time. Detail levels are quite impressive throughout, even in some nighttime sequences (take a look at the fine detail on the fabric in screenshot 4 for just one example). There is definitely a somewhat gritty appearance that shows up courtesy of the heavy grain field, and there are occasional very brief moments of chunkiness or yellow splotchiness, but on the whole this a very impressively organic looking transfer. As can perhaps be gleaned from some of the screenshots accompanying this review, the palette in this film is almost lurid at times, often featuring kind of peculiar lighting that emphasizes deep reds and blues. Colors are really nicely saturated throughout the presentation.

The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion features nice sounding LPCM Mono tracks in either Italian or English, but as per Arrow's verbiage reprinted above, synch can be almost comically loose in both languages at times. The film benefits from yet another great Ennio Morricone score, which sounds full bodied and distortion free throughout the presentation. The two mixes have some interesting, and to my ears kind of random, difference in mix levels, where you can hear the prioritization between music and dialogue handled differently in the two different languages. That said, there are no major issues in hearing dialogue in either of the languages.

The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary by Kat Ellinger


• Private Pictures (1080p; 44:15) is advertised as a "newly edited" aggregation of archival interviews with Susan Scott and Luciano Ercoli, along with new material with Ernesto Gastaldi.


• The Forbidden Soundtrack of the Big Three (1080p; 47:05) is an appreciation of the film's score (and other cult items) by Lovely Jon.


• Forbidden Lady (1080p; 44:03) is a Q&A with Dagmar Lassander from the 2016 Festival of Fantastic Films in Manchester.


• Italian Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 3:13)


• English Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 3:13)


• Image Gallery (1080p; 1:30)

As per their usual custom, Arrow has also provided a nicely appointed insert booklet.

The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Both the essay in the insert booklet and the back cover of this release mention the connection of so-called "F gialli" to Henri-Georges Clouzot's legendary Diabolique, but in the case of The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion, some viewers may join me in wondering if Ernesto Gastaldi's screenplay could have used a bit more of both an exploitation of ambiguity and more shocking twists. In fact one of the really curious things about this film is how it kind of trots out its supposed "surprising" plot points without really batting an eye, while also maintaining a weird distance from the kind of overt, even graphic, imagery that came to define the giallo idiom, perhaps bit later in the decade than this film initially appeared. Ercoli really provides some enjoyable style here, but the story never really gels in any convincingly suspenseful way. Technical merits are first rate, and the supplementary package very appealing, for those considering a purchase.